T H E   S I N S   O F   N E W   Y O R K
<PRE>
                     As  "Exposed" by the Police Gazette
                            By:   Edward  Van  Emery

                                       P A R T   I
             THE ORIGINAL POLICE GAZETTE  (1845)

                                      Chapter  1
                            The Moralizing Muckraker

                                                I

"In this Christian age,
'Tis strange, you'll engage,
When everything's doing high crimes to assuage,
That the direst offenses continue to rage;
That fibbing and fobbing,
and thieving and robbing,
The foulest maltreating,
And forging and lifting,
and wickedly shifting
The goods that belong to another away,
Are the dark misdemeanors of every day."

      Dark and sinful, indeed, were the ways of the city of New York in the
Forties. The poet of the period from whom we have just quoted had much
material for his nimble fancy, which touched on doings even more fell and
varied than those referred to in his next two lines:

"And then, too, the scrapes of seductions and rapes,
And foulest of crimes in the foulest of shapes."

      Only shortly before this rhythmic catalogue of crime had been accorded
the majesty of print by the National Police Gazette, the new Halls of
Justice, which soon came to be known as the Tombs Prison, had raised their
somber heights.

1)    THE  TOMBS  PRISON  INCIDENT

      The gibbet had already been erected for the third time in
the prison yard, and the cells had been the scene of a combined marriage,
honeymoon and tragic suicide; an  incident enthralling in drama and romance.
The world, indeed, had not yet ceased talking of the final hours upon this
earth, of John C. Colt, brother of the inventor of the revolver, who after a
long legal battle that carried through one court after another and a lavish
expenditure of money, had been sentenced to pay the penalty for the murder
of Samuel Adams.

      Caroline Henshaw, although not married to Colt, was during his
incarceration, a constant visitor to the Tombs. It was the doomed man's
desire to marry her before he was hanged, and the marriage ceremony was
performed at noon of the fatal day, the time of execution having been fixed
for four hours later.
      The bride was accompanied by Colt's brother and inappropriately enough
by John Howard Payne, author and composer of "Home Sweet Home." The Rev. Mr.
Anthon performed the ceremony. By law the mistress became the wife
just in time to become the widow. The marriage took place in the presence of
David Graham, Robert Emmett, Justice Merritt, John Howard Payne, and the
brother of the doomed man.  After it was over the bride and groom were
allowed to be alone one hour. And after this brief honeymoon the wife
departed and Colt requested to be alone.
      Just as the sheriff was about to intrude upon the prisoner's
privacy to summon him to the gibbet an alarm of fire was raised. The cupola
of the prison was ablaze. The hanging was forgotten in the excitement; but
once the blaze was extinguished the sheriff remembered his job and sought
his prisoner.
      Upon his bed in the cell John C. Colt was stretched, with his
hands composedly crossed upon his bosom and a knife buried in his heart.

      There were those, the POLICE GAZETTE included, who hinted that the
body found was not that of Colt but a corpse prepared for the occasion, and
that the supposed suicide escaped either to Texas or California. The
coroner, it was charged, was aware of the deception, and his jurymen were
selected for their ignorance of  Colt's appearance.

<center>THE NEW YORK TOMBS
<img src="/Image/Sin/Tombs.jpg">
Scenes and Incidents in the American Newgate.</center>
2)    OLD  POLICE  KNOWN  AS  LEATHERHEADS

      New York was a lawless city, as had been proved in the mysterious
murder of Mary Rogers, a recent happening, and one that was ever to remain a
crime unsolved. It was high time a new organized police had come to take the
place of the old police,
better known as Leatherheads, who had guarded the city previous to 1844.
They prowled the town at night in camlet cloaks, carried huge lanterns and
cried the hour. Their leather caps were varnished twice a year and became
like iron.

3)    MILL  BOYS

      But we are now come to the year of Our Lord, 1845. Only a few months
before, in the Polk-Clay presidential campaign, Political excitement had
been running precariously high. During one of the mass meetings, among the
out-of-town delegations that marched down Park Row, were the Mill Boys, one
thousand strong. A Joyous free fight had developed during which knives,
swords, pistols, clubs and fists were brought into play, six were killed and
many dangerously wounded.

4)    ADMINISTRATION  OF  MAYOR  ROBERT  H.  MORRIS

      At this time, what was known as the "lamp district" did not extend
above Fourteenth Street. The corrupt administration of Mayor Robert H.
Morris had already felt the resentment of angry taxpayers at the public
polls. Civic indignation was expressed over the fact that a city with a
population of 400,000 persons should have a police department only eight
hundred strong, and there was bitter protest against these men being
compelled to work more than twelve hours a day. The Committee of Streets had
reported in favor of employing Professor Morse to construct the new Magnetic
telegraph so as to communicate with all police stations in town. The City
Corporation had engaged Mr. Ackerman, the sign painter on Nassau Street, to
affix the names of the streets on the gas-lamps.

5)    GAZETTE  TID-BITS

      The "unregenerate and unscrupulous vermin of the Five Points was for a
time confined to its own breeding ground, which, in its debasements of crime
and filth had been found to rival even the Whitechapel district of London,
from which it had inherited many of its denizens." Not that the old town had
been relegated to
a tame place, confesses the Gazette some time later:

          .........for the devotees of Melody, Bacchus and Cupid there were
many celebrated sporting haunts flourishing in the neighborhood of Broadway,
Church and Walker Streets and along Park Row.
          The most famous probably was the Cooper House, corner Anthony
(later Worth) Street and Broadway. And The Senate, in Church Street, was
generally well thronged with women rich in raiment and poor in Chastity.
Sandy Lawrence's hostelry, famed for its "square meals," was only a few
minutes' walk from this resort. Mike Murphy (the celebrated Irish pugilist)
had his sporting drum on Broadway, corner Leonard Street. "Butter-Cake"
Dick's coffee-and-cake saloon under the Tribune building was a respectable
though popular hang-out. For those who liked politics with their
refreshments, on Elm Street was The Ivy Green, Headquarters of the Empire
(afterwards the Americus) Club, then the Democratic stronghold of the State.
It was presided over by John Clancy, later a member of the State
Legislature. Tom Hyer, first champion pugilist of America, was at 26 Park
row, which was the headquarters for the Union-ists, the Whig organization.
There was strong rivalry between the two headquarters and the flagstones of
Park Row were often thumped mercilessly with the brawny carcasses of the
combatants.

      Notwithstanding claims that, through new reforms, New York had
suddenly become the best regulated city in the world, Violations against
law, morality and public welfare were still so much in evidence in 1845 that
two of its more or less consequential citizens deemed it a fitting time to
provide a new method of combating the evil-doer. And in this way there came
into being the first of the American illustrated newspapers. It was named
the NATIONAL  POLICE  GAZETTE and the name has never been changed.
     To the memory of not a few of the present generation, but in the main
that of its fathers and grandfathers, the attractions of the Gazette's pink
pages and what its pictures and printed content stood for, is still fairly
fresh. But of the Gazette of three-quarters of a century and more ago, and
its interesting history, little is now known. Its purposes and intent can
best be explained by referring to its prospectus, which is reprinted in
part, herewith.

6)    THE NECESSITY  OF THE NATIONAL  POLICE  GAZETTE  TO ASSIST  THE POLICE
DEPARTMENT

          The necessity of such an instrument as the National Police Gazette
to assist the operations of the Police department, and to perform the
species of service which does not lie within the scope of the present
system, will make itself felt at a glance.  Our city, and indeed the whole
country, swarms with hordes of English and other thieves, burglars,
pick-pockets, and swindlers, whose daily and nightly exploits give continual
employment to our officers, and whose course through the land, whatever
direction they may take, may be traced by their depredations. These
offenders, though known to our most experienced members of the police, are
protected from the scrutiny of the community at large; and the natural
result is, that the unconscious public are in continual contact with
miscreants who date their last stationary residence from the walls of
Newgate, the shore of Botany Bay, or who have but recently left the confines
of our own State Prison.
          It is of first importance that these vagabonds should be
notoriously known. The success of the felon depends mainly upon the
ignorance of the community as to his character, and until a system be
adopted which  will effectually hold him up to public shame and irrevocable
exposure, the public will remain at the mercy of his depredations and
nine-tenths of his fraternity go scot-free of any punishment.
          Suffering under the continually increasing evils which the
immunity thus enjoyed by large classes of offenders has encouraged, plan
after plan has been devised, and system after system to reform and remedy,
projected. The throes of years, and the undiscouraged travail of a thousand
brains, instead of resulting in the adoption of new, bold and original
measures, has merely eventuated in the remodelling of a department.  The
press--the mightiest conservator of social welfare__has been left from the
category of appliances, while every other branch of civil polity feels the
force of its protective surveillance.
          The success of felons depends mainly, as we said before, upon the
public ignorance of their persons and pursuits. It will be our object,
therefore to strip them of the advantages of a professional incognito, by
publishing a minute description of their names, aliases, and persons; a
succinct history of their previous career, their place of residence at the
time of writing, and a current account of their movements from time to time.
By this means the most dangerous offenders, the knowledge of whose infamy
has slept for years in the bosoms of a few tenacious officers, will be
spotted from one end of the Union to the other, and every community
throughout its length and breadth be put upon its guard against them. The
peculiar stock in trade of the officers will be made the common property of
the public; and the felon, branded with his shame, will be pointed out on
all sides, and be stripped of the social impunity which mainly  emboldened
him to offense. The result of an active adoption of this course must
therefore necessarily be to drive all resident rogues to a more safe and
congenial meridian, and to deter all floating tribes of vagabond adventurers
from embarking to a region where an untiring and ubiquitous  minister of
public justice stands ready to hold them to the public gaze until they
become powerless from the notoriety of their debasement.

<center>A MASHER MASHED
<img src="/Image/Sin/Mash.jpg"></center>
                                        II

7)    GEORGE WILKES AND ENOCH CAMP  FOUNDERS  OF  ORIGINAL  GAZETTE

      It happened like this: George Wilkes, a journalistic genius of his
day, and Enoch Camp, who had turned from journalism to the law and then
combined both callings, were the founders of the original Gazette. The
first-mentioned, just previous to this venture, had been the editor of a
four-paged publication dubbed The Subterranean, which was devoted in the
main to the expose of the source of various political incomes, and how these
were derived from inelegant vices. Wilkes  exposed to such purpose that he
was set on by gangsters numerous times and was even shot at twice. In
addition, he was arrested no less than six times. The final arrest, though
followed by the demise of "The Subterranean", had an unpleasant aftermath
for the administration of the city of New York. The editor's reports made up
from what he had seen and heard during his residence at the Tombs made
itself felt in the ensuing election by Mayor Robert H. Morris all the way
down to the warden of the Tombs.
      Camp made an ideal partner for Wilkes. Camp handled the business and
legal end of the affairs of the concern, while Wilkes had charge of the
editorial end. After a few years Camp retired a rich man, and George W.
Matsell, while yet a Chief of Police in New York, became a part owner. This
partnership lacked the business acumen possessed by Camp, whose association
with Wilkes must have been exciting while it lasted.

<center>GEORGE WILKES
<img src="/Image/Sin/Wilkes.jpg">
The founder of the Police Gazette</center>

8)    FIRST  APPEARANCE OF NEW PUBLICATION HAD FATAL  RESULTS.
            If one chronicler is to be believed, the very first ppearance of
the new publication had fatal results. Its first number chanced to be
carried to the place of call of Jonas Burke, on Delancey Street, where the
palatable blend in which he specialized gave his house the name of Gin and
Calumus Hall. Some one took exception to an item in the Gazette and words
wound up in a melee from which the proprietor emerged minus a couple of
fingers and a portion of one ear, while the instigator had his nose very
much disarranged, and a participant, who proved to be Croucher Collins, was
carried out dead.

9)    THE  GAZETTE  UNDER ASSAULT

      In the Gazette's initial issue, dated October 11, 1845, and under the
title of "Lives of the Felons," the first of a series dealing with the
notorious criminals of the period was started. No. 1, in this series, gave
the opening chapter in the  career of Robert Sutton, alias "Bob the
Wheeler," whose exploits to lift from the POLICE  GAZETTE, "were they not
substantiated by irrefragable proofs, they would be discarded by the most
susceptible imaginations as the merest vagaries of fiction."  We will deal
with this villain in a separate chapter, so it may be seen that the
amanuensis in question did not let his fancy or flow of English run away
with him.
      Before taking temporary leave of "Bob the Wheeler," it should be
recorded how that personage was instrumental in putting the Gazette
temporarily out of business, which happened every now and then. Soon after
his release from jail, which was not so long after the completion of his
life story in the Gazette columns, Bob Sutton descended on the latter's
headquarters with a number of his cohorts, among them James Downer, the
resurrectionist (whose grave-robbing exploits had been given attention by
the Gazette). The roughs and the police milled all over Centre Street, and
the railroad-tracks, which had not yet been laid down West Street to the
Canal Street Depot of the Hudson River Railroad, were ripped up and used as
weapons. Downer and two others of the Sutton forces were killed this time.
Sergeant Belcher, who with Tim Mooney, the Keel Layer, were the bodyguards
of Wilkes, were the only Gazette casualties. Mooney, who was alleged to have
killed two policemen during a London riot, was only slightly injured, while
Belcher suffered a broken arm. Though a mob of close to two hundred attacked
the Gazette, the press and editorial rooms, then in the cellar of 27 Centre
Street, seem to have been well barricaded.
     It was quite necessary that the Gazette sanctum should be well
barricaded, as it was in a more or less perpetual state of siege from the
rage of the underworld. The most serious assault came in 1850, and this time
six deaths resulted. Not only Wilkes himself and Belcher were carried to the
hospital, but so was the Gazette's star reporter, Andrew Frost, who passed
away from his wounds. Of the attacking mob, which was led by Country
McCloskey, who had stood one hundred rounds with Tom Hyer, Nobby McChester
and other ruffians of the Five Points, and such well-known Amazons as Lizzie
the Poor Beauty, and Donkey Dora Cole, five were left dead in the streets.
The plant of the paper was demolished this time.

10)    THE  ASTOR  PLACE  RIOT

      These were perilous times for crusading tirades. Only the year before,
which had opened with the excitement of the California gold rush, it had
been the unfortunate duty of the militia to pour a rifle volley into a mass
of rioting humanity, and twenty-two bodies had been left in Astor Place shot
or trampled to death. While this horror was the outcome of jealousy between
Edwin Forrest and the English tragedian, William C. Macready, there is
plenty of reason for the belief that political chicanery brought about the
crisis. Forrest had been coldly received in England. This was charged to
Macready's envy and to the criticisms of the cuspidorial customs of the
United States by Charles Dickens during a visit to this country. On May 7,
1849, both Forrest and Macready played Macbeth in New York and the latter's
performance was broken up. Washington Irving and other leading citizens
persuaded Macready to give another performance three nights later.  On the
same day handbills of an inflammatory character branding the appearance of
the English actor as an insult to our Americanism were distributed through
the city wherever they would do most harm. It was later proved by the
Gazette that the handbills had been ordered by some one who had headquarters
at the Empire Club, which was then led by Captain Isaiah Rynders. Where
Bible House now stands was a stone-yard; also a sewer was being constructed
along Fourth Avenue. Cobblestones and the contents of the yard made
plentiful ammunition for the infuriated mob that descended on the Astor
Place Theater to break up the Macready performance. When the militia was
finally brought to the aid of the police the first round of fire was
discharged above the heads of the rioters. Still they would not disperse.The
fatal command then followed.


11)    IN  THE  FIFTIES

      Going into the Fifties the Gazette was up against a twofold fight,
battling not only the breakers of the law, but its guardians as a
combination in addition. The municipality was sinking into such a mire of
political corruption that in 1857 the city of New York was declared by the
Legislature to be unfit to govern itself. There were two antagonistic police
forces for a time that were more concerned in battling each other for
authority than they were in fighting the enemies of public safety. As "an
untiring and ubiquitous minister of public justice" the POLICE  GAZETTE
didn't have a chance. Still the weekly fired its barbs of righteous
indignation, only the targets were far too numerous.

          [That frightful sink of human degeneracy in the forbidding heart
of the Five Points, known as the Old Brewery, has been demolished several
years by now. But the building, known as "the wickedest dwelling in the
world" and its environs, had constituted merely the scum of human depravity
and made up a quarter repellent to the normal citizen. The glittering and
protected profligacy that had come into brazen existence along Broadway and
Houston Street and its adjacent votaries is a far more dangerous snare.
          One of the first and worst in the area is the tough concert saloon
at 50 Houston Street and of which the proprietor, Charley Sturges, is well
known to the entire crooked brigade of both sexes. At this place plots are
hatched to break into banks, flood the country with "queer," spirit some pal
out of prison, to put away some principal or witness, or to square it with
the police. Here not a little counterfeit engraving is turned out by that
first-class workman, "Cooley" Keyes.]

      This is a fair example of how the Gazette kept after the underworld, a
tribute to its courage rather than its judgment under the existing
conditions. The attack was kept up on 50 Houston Street even after "Dusty
Bob" took over the place and held forth there until he was called to "do his
bit in the jug" for cutting off the ears of someone who had annoyed him in a
crib on Ninth Avenue.

12)   PLACES  GIVEN  ATTENTION   IN  THE  COLUMNS  OF  THE  GAZETTE

      Any number of similar places were given attention in the columns of
the Gazette. There was Poughkeepsie Jake's at 27 Houston Street, and the
House of Commons, which was right next door. And Fanny White's too
well-known "palace of joy"; where her successor, Eliza Pratt, was referred
to as "the madame known to widest shame in her day."  Close by on Broadway
was Stanwix Hall, where "Bill the Butcher" Poole was done to death shortly
after his historic rough-and-tumble fight with John "Old Smoke" Morrissey.
Near by was Abe Florence's famous The Corner, and a block or so away was
Phil Maguire's equally notorious Lafayette Hall.
      Here and hereabouts the loosest and most desperate characters of the
city were wont to congregate. Not only did the felon and fancy female hold
forth in this district, but likewise the so-called sporting element, which
was then made up of "shoulder-hitters," dog-fighters, gamblers, actors and
politicians. Here festered an appalling record of knifing, shooting,
gouging, biting and manhandling affrays, and mayhem and murder. Jim Irving,
who, like Morrissey, later became a member of the Legislature, and Jack
Somerindyke "tasted each other's mutton."  Poole beat and kicked Wally Mason
so severely he never recovered, and poole's brother-in-law, Charley Lozier,
had holes blown through him by Johnny Lyng__just to cite a few of the doings
with which the Gazette regaled its readers. Some years after the Gazette
presented a list of the hangers-on of the Houston Street resorts who met a
violent end, and enumerated half-a-hundred without much trouble. Some, like
Poole and Tim Heenan, brother of John C Heenan, of pugilistic fame, were
shot to death; others, including William Farley, better known as Reddy the
Blacksmith, and Jack Hilton, alias the Limerick Boy, were carved to
eternity; and not a few were hanged.
      The original Gazette started off bravely enough, but battling the
criminal ranks when these were backed by the police and the politicians, was
simply too much of an undertaking.

                                       I I I

13)   POLICY  GAMBLING  EXPOSED BY  THE  POLICE  GAZETTE

      One of the very first exposures that exercised the indignation of the
Police Gazette had to do with the ruinous effects of policy gambling. For a
time the prize numbers were drawn from a wheel on the steps of the old City
Hall in the Park, until the Legislature, in 1832, annulled the charter of
the lottery company. It moved over to New Jersey, where it was drawn as late
as 1850. After being driven out of New Jersey the lottery companies operated
from Delaware, Maryland, Louisiana and other southern states. The operations
of the Drawing were revealed and one was also initiated into the mysteries
of "station" and "day" numbers, "gigs," "whips" and "saddles."  It was
explained how "through this system of insurance" men of extensive capital
were reaping a monetary harvest at the expense of the poor and at a rate of
31 per cent profit.

<center><a href="/Police/Sins/Lottery.html"><font color="red">LOTTERY Annual Record 1885</font></a></center>


          [The results of this are easy to be seen. Its deluded victims,
unable to satisfy; its exorbitant demands by their legitimate earnings,
yield to its corrupting influence and commence pilfering from their
employers. Step by step they wade deeper into crime, until advancing beyond
the limit of precaution they are "engulfed" in ruin. The miserable victim is
then consigned to the horror of a cell, and subsequently to a convict's
doom, while those who are chargeable for his guilt, those who suborned him
by their devilish traffic into crime, curse him for a "d------d black
rascal,"
          We do not hesitate to say, and we believe facts will bear us out,
that nine-tenths of the crime and prostitution of the colored classes of the
city are produced either directly or indirectly by policy gambling. Examine
our prisons and see if the history of their inmates will not attest to this
fact.  (Apparently the Demon Rum did not get its just due for fell work.) Is
this longer to be endured? Are the authorities of our city any longer to
foster these jackals by tolerating their nefarious practices? Is the statute
to be defied and the law mocked by a horde of villains who cluster like
flies in every street where poverty has shrunk to its abode, and where
gasping labor can be extorted of its pittance in the vain hope of casting a
golden anchor in the future? What lacks, good Messieurs of the sword and
scales: Cannot evenhanded Justice, who bestows her slashing strokes so
liberally upon the impoverished and friendless victim, make one of her six
cuts over the costards of this contemptible banditti? Do we live under laws,
or is ruin and defiance licensed to grin from bow windows of five thousand
dens of plunder without rebuke, while a force of eight hundred men loaf by
turns on grocer's barrels, or hang about hydrants to pass soft compliments
to errand serving-maids, or waste their tremendous energies upon the
apprehension of wandering drunkards? Is there no one man in the country, in
remembrance of his oath, bold enough to step into these nurseries of crime
and cry " Forbear to violate the law!"]

      That is the kind of paper the original National Police Gazette
was_____at the start. As a result of the attack on the policy-gambling
interests, the following letter of warning came to the offices of Messrs.
Camp & Wilkes:

             Some dozen of us have determined (if you persist in annoying
us) to annoy you in a more disagreeable manner than the one you have so
unsuccessfully aimed at us.

                                         Yours,
                              The Policy Boys

14)    POLICE  GAZETTE  WELCOMED  LIBEL  SUITS

      The Police Gazette, as already indicated, got quite used to this sort
of thing through its years as a reform publication. And as for libel suits,
they welcomed them.

              We do not heed threats or libel suits. We are strong in the
justice of our motives and will have out the truth at any cost whatsoever.
We never dodged a challenge or evaded an investigation in our lives. Those
who fear, make truce, but coercion never swerves the just and bold.

15)    SUBJECTS  REFLECTED  ON  BY  THE  GAZETTE

      A)  Employing Females instead of Males as Store-clerks

Another objective that gave the Gazette considerable editorial concern in
its very first days was an unusual one. It was nothing less than an argument
in favor of employing females instead of males as store clerks as a remedy
against theft, fraud and embezzlements in retail stores. Just get an eyeful
of this:

          "It is an undoubted fact that one-third of the whole annual amount
contributed by spendthrifts and debauchees to the support of houses of ill
fame in this city, comes from the pockets of retailers' clerks; and many a
shining satin and rustling silk that sweeps the pave, is extracted
clandestinely from an employer's store as a return for illicit favors. If
females were employed in stores instead of gay young men, we should be rid
of these results. The employer would find his interests in the hands of
safer guardians, for women have no outside pleasures to be dishonest.
          We have another motive in recommending the adoption of this
system. It is said that ladies prefer to purchase of male clerks, and that
the main inducement that sends many a fair one out a shopping, is the desire
to be waited on by rosy-cheeked young men. We do not believe this against
the sex, and on this ground we would like to see Stewart undertake the
refutation of the slander.

     B)   Crimes and Misdemeanors

In those early days, just to give a slight line on its activities, the
National Police Gazette waged an interesting warfare on the prominent
abortionist, Madame Restall and others; gave much unwelcome publicity to Bob
Sutton; and to John A.Murrell, the great western land pirate; Joseph I Hare,
bold robber and highwayman; James Dowling, alias Cupid, the notorious
pickpocket; John Honeyman, the celebrated City Bank robber; William
Parkinson, the "Barge Robber," who robbed the Albany boat, the Clinton, of
$34,000; and numerous others. One of its exposures found John B. Gough,
foremost temperance lecturer of his time, very much intoxicated in a bawdy
house on Walker Street.

<center>CUPID IN TOMPKINS PARK
<img src="/Image/Sin/Cupid.jpg">
A Place where Cupid has made his favorite stamping ground, and
where the stern paterfamilias is wrost to appear.</center>

      The following paragraph from an early number tells its own story:

          We offer this week a most interesting record of horrid murders,
outrageous robberies, bold forgeries, astounding burglaries, hideous rapes,
vulgar seductions and recent exploits of pickpockets and hotel thieves in
various parts of the country.

      What more could any one ask for a nickel, and later for only four
cents per copy (the Gazette, with rapid increase in circulation reduced its
price one penny), or two dollars per annum, payable in advance?
      Regular departments were given over to the crimes and misdemeanors
above enumerated and to "Counterfeits," "False Pretenses," "Perjury," etc.
      The Gazette, though opposed to capital punishment, did not share the
revulsion of other contemporaries over the public execution of the first
woman in the State of New York. She (Mrs. Van Volkenburgh) deserved her
fate, the gallows, and thus ended the story of her execution:

          The drop was then let fall, and as the rope straightened upon her
neck and just as she raised from her feet, she gave a shriek and thus passed
from time to eternity. Thus ended the life a lewd and wretched woman, who
had sent two husbands (perhaps unprepared) into another world.

16)    IN  THE  FORTIES

      Editorially, the National Police Gazette at the outset may seem
uncouth in its treatment of news, and its comment at times must be
pronounced naive. We find room for only a few examples:

JUST  SENTENCE____Heustis, the Long Island abductor, who ran away with
another man's wife some weeks ago, has been tried for the offense of
stealing the clothes which the lady wore at the time of her departure, and
has been found guilty of petty larceny. He was thereupon sentenced to
imprisonment in the penitentiary for six months as a warning to all such
villains in the future. According to this sentence, all scoundrels who
meditate absconding with other men's wives will, hereafter, find it
necessary to take them e puris naturabilis or not at all.

ATTEMPTED  RAPE____A villain by the name of Martin Shays, attempted a rape
upon a young lady in this town Wednesday last, but entirely without success.
The lady was in bed, but fought like a tigress in defense of her private
rights.

SHE  DIDN'T  LOVE  HIM____Catherine Foster, a young woman of eighteen years,
has been convicted of the murder of her husband, by arsenic; he was a
respectable young man to whom she had been married but three weeks.

CURIOUS  SEDUCTION  CASE____His Honor, Judge Edwards, of the Circuit Court,
delivered several decisions, one of which, on a motion for a new trial in a
case of seduction, disclosed some very curious facts, highly illustrative of
the morals of the up-country folks. The case was tried by Judge Edmonds, at
Hudson, September, 1844, and in which John D. Cater sought to recover
damages from William H. Cook, for the seduction of his stepdaughter, Sally
Ann Irvin.
      At the trial, Sally Ann testified that, in the summer of 1843, she was
living as a maid servant in the family of Edward P. Livingston, Esq., where
the defendant was a hired man. One warm night, she, Sally Ann, went to sleep
with another girl in a small room in the long hall, when the girl proposed
to smoke some cigars, which they did; the defendant soon after came in, put
his hand on the bed, and asked who slept on the front side; a boy who was
also in the bed said "Sally Ann"; he then got between the two, when she
tried to get up, but the defendant lay on her clothes and she could not get
away, and he tickled her so, she was out of breath, "and had to give up,"
and the seduction followed.
      The jury gave $350. damages. A new trial was asked, on the ground that
a stepfather could not maintain the action, she being in service elsewhere.
The court held he stood in loco parentis and denied the motion.

      With such goings on in the Forties, and others to which we will call
attention in due time, it is evident that the National Police Gazette had
work to do, and especially with female virtue valued as low as $350. And,
possibly, incidents such as this, and others to be related, may go to prove
that the Police Gazette did play some part toward laying the foundation for
an improvement of later-day morals. For, while it is true that the sex, one
time referred to as the weaker, is being caught in ticklish positions even
today, yet is it not worthy of note how casually mention is made of flappers
of that period smoking cigars? And we criticize our modern damsels for
puffing the pernicious cigarette!

17)   THE  POLICE  GAZETTE,  AN  ADVERTISING  MEDIUM

      By the end of its second year of existence the Police Gazette, which
had been launched with an edition of 4,200 copies, laid claim to having more
than one hundred thousand readers, and had grown from four to eight pages,
tabloid size, and four columns to the page. As an advertising medium it was
doing very well, ten to twelve of its thirty-two columns being given over to
such paid notice. Let us have a glance at the advertisements:

A)     Thirty-odd years later the Gazette not only had room for the
advertising notices of the Louisiana State Lottery Company, but gave a
column to the annual listing of those who had won prizes above one thousand
dollars.

B)   Burgess, Stringer & Co., booksellers and publishers of Broadway, corner
Ann Street, call attention to the very latest of Alexander Dumas, "The Count
of Monte Cristo"; to J. Fenimore Cooper's brand-new novel, "The
Chainbearer"; to the romances of Eugene Sue, which includes the
now-forgotten "Matilda," "a firt-rate domestic tale albeit by a Frenchman."

C)   Medical advertisements were numerous.  Drs. Ivans & Hawes bring to
notice "a great triumph" in "Vegetable Extract" for epileptic fits, which
the proprietors of the compound "have no delicacy in saying can be cured."
H. Johnston, Chemist, in making known his "Italian Hair Dye," advises that
"it is perhaps a commendable deception to give a beautiful color to one's
curls and locks if nature has not done so. It is used by hundreds of our
fashionables with approbation." The same advertiser catered to the
patent-leather sheiks of the Forties with his pure and highly scented
"Bear's Oil," an unequaled preparation for the hair or whiskers.

D)   Dr. Townsend's "Compound Extract of Sarsaparilla" was good for a column
in not a few issues and offered testimonials which told of marvelous cures
in the way of dyspepsia, scrofula, cancers and much else. The certificate of
his cure from one John McGown, who, "after using a bottle or two," had his
cheek cleared of a tumor, has his letter backed up by his good pastor, who
writes:
      "I am acquainted with Mr. McGown, and know that for several years he
had a very bad face....."

E)   Another full column extolled Dr. Brandreth's Pills, which had made a
certain D. Stors feels just half his fifty years after a delorable
visitation of ills, and he was so appreciative that he prayed that God would
bless Dr. Brandreth, the maker of Brandreth's Pills.

F)   McAlister's "All-Healing Ointment," which checked "insensible
perspiration," is acknowledged to have power to "cure more diseases than any
other five remedies before the world."

G)   Very few theatrical advertisements were to be noted, though the Bowery
Amphi-theatre desired it known that "Dale and McFarland throw 60 somersaults
each night, besides all else to be seen in this establishment."

H)   Thefts and Personal

          1) 'STOP  THE  VILLAIN," was the heading over a personal
advertisement, which went on to tell how: "William G. Moody, formerly of
Boston and New York, but recently of Jersey City, opposite New York, has run
away leaving a wife and two helpless children to the tender mercies of an
unpitying world and who has taken with him a valuable piano belonging to the
little son of a friend who has every been kind to him." Details as to the
appearance and characteristics of the unfeeling scoundrel are set forth. "He
has large whiskers extending under his chin, is a great talker, very
conceited and has an awkward imitation of the French shrug of the shoulders
when in conversation. He will probably pass himself off as a professor of
music. His voice is very harsh and cracked in singing...."

      2)   "STOP  THIEF---$20.  REWARD."  This call and offer comes from the
Protestant Episcopal Church in Mount Holly, New Jersey, from which edifice
sixteen yards of carpet had been stolen.

I )   Advertising Deserters

      It was in the second year of publication that the United States went
to war with Mexico, and it may be significant of the weight that was already
carried by the National Police Gazette that, "by Command of Major General
Scott," the following official order came from "Head Quarters of the Army in
Washington," and dated October 24, 1846;

             It being supposed that advertising deserters in the "National
Police Gazette" may have a tendency to check desertion by increasing the
chances of apprehension of the offender. A large subscription has been
authorized with a view to its general
distribution among the troops. Accordingly, every company, military post and
recruiting station will be supplied with a copy.

      The Civil War, however, found the Gazette coming into its lean years.
After hostilities between the North and the South had ceased, its popularity
waned steadily and from a once lucrative property it became a dead weight
and Wilkes now seemed more interested in the Spirit of the Times, which he
had purchased from William T. Porter in 1856; on this weekly, the first
all-around sporting journal, Horace Greeley had once been a typesetter.

<center><a href="/Police/Sins/Deserter.html"><font color="red">DESERTER LIST</font></a></center>

18)   RICHARD  K.  FOX  TAKES  OVER  THE  NATIONAL  POLICE  GAZETTE.

      In 1876 Richard K. Fox took over the National Police Gazette and made
a complete change in its appearance and purposes. Under his proprietorship
this weekly became a powerful sports and theatrical organ; the forerunner of
the present day tabloid as a picture paper and the dispenser of sensational
news; and the means of bringing its head wealth, prominence, and a degree of
power. Of the pink decades of the Police Gazette, with which many of us are
more or less familiar, these will be dealt with further along in this
history.
      " It sank so low," stated a Fox editorial in reviewing the past
history of the publication just taken over, "that it appealed for support to
the very class that provided it with subjects for its pages and had regular
columns devoted to the lawless classes and printed in their slang, the argot
of the New York gutters. Even this did not stem the tide of disaster. The
circulation kept dropping until Mr.Matsell, who had come into sole ownership
in 1873, disposed of his unremunerative property to two engravers, father
and son, who had been providing the pictures for the paper. But it failed to
restore itself to its old popularity and so passed into the hands of Richard
Kyle Fox."

19)   THE  NATIONAL  POLICE  GAZETTE  HAD NOT  WORKED  OUT  ACCORDING  TO
ITS  PLAN.

      Now it is patent from a present-day digest of doings in the criminal
world, that the primal scheme of the National Police Gazette, and as set
forth in its prospectus has not worked out in accordance with its ambitious
plan. For the years have proven that crime and the criminal are still with
us in spite of the efforts of the original National Police Gazette. And the
failure cannot be charged to any reluctance on the part of the publishers to
acquaint the public with the deplorable propensities and peccadillos of
certain of the citizenry. But no matter how primitive an example of
journalism the original National Police Gazette may be now accepted, its
criminal chronicles and rude illustrations struck the public fancy for quite
a period, even though it was printed on rather coarse paper and mainly in
agate type.

20)   A  RHYMED  ANNUAL  ADDRESS

      There was one other feature that was special to the National Police
Gazette pages previous to the Fifties_____a rhymed annual address, which
poetic effusion gave a partial review of matters that had commanded the
attention of the publication during the year, and a sample of which has
already been presented. In chapters to come this history will be devoted to
some of the outstanding cases. Some reference to these will be found in the
address, of which a few of its numerous stanzas are appended:

Then let us not scoff,
Too severe at poor Gough,
Though constrained to exclaim---"What a sad falling off!"
From "tinct. of Tolou" and pure syrup and soda,
To riot and rum in a house of bad odour!
From orthodox slumbers and dreams apostolic,
To the rank ups and downs of an amorous frolic.
"What a sad falling off!  What a sad falling off!"
Then Mercy, we pray, for the fall of poor Gough!

The next strangest case that the old year has seen,
Is the vexed prosecution of Polly Bodine:
Tried twice__once convicted___the inhuman fury
Gave the scaffold the slip through the loops of a jury.
Oh, Polly Bodine!   Oh, Polly Bodine!
Such a case on our records has never been seen!
Such a chapter of horror in which scarce a doubt
Mocks the efforts of justice in tracing it out;
But tho' vengeance is baffled, not hushed is the scream
Of unappeased ghosts upon Polly Bodine!

Bob Sutton, Bob Sutton, bold burglar, come out,
And unravel the train-work which bringeth about
The grasp of the law in its own proper time---
The doom of the felon___the stamp of his crime___
You may wander at large, but naught will disperse
The dark shades of your deeds___their brand and their curse,
Then shrink back, old burglar, shrink back to your den!
And pray for old Time's everlasting "amen!"

But why further relate
With name and by date,
The long list of felons disgracing the State,
From Honeyman down to old Parkinson, all___
Some infamous thieves have been pinned to the wall,
And murderers blackened in crime have been tried
And condemned by the laws of the land they defied:
For Justice, though slow, brings at last the poor wretch
who poisons or stabs, to the string of Jack Ketch.


Sins of New York
As "Exposed" by the Police Gazette
By Edward Van Every
Publisher:  Frederick A. Stokes Company--New York
Copyright: 1930  3 Printings  October 15, October 23 and October 30.


Prepared and Transcribed by Miriam Medina
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